6. What Motivates People

People are more motivated as they get closer to a goal.

The shorter the distance to the goal, the more motivated people are to reach it. People are even more motivated when the end is in sight.

You can get this extra motivation even with the illusion of progress (it only seems like there has been some progress).

People enjoy being part of a reward program. Studies show that, when compared to customers who are not part of the program, the customers with reward cards smiled more, chatted longer with café employees, said “thank you” more often, and left a tip more often.

Motivation and purchases plummet right after the goal is reached (postreward resetting phenomenon). If you have a second reward level people won’t initially be very motivated to reach that second reward.

You’re most at risk of losing your customer right after a reward is reached.

Think about the pattern of behaviour you’re looking for, and then adjust the schedule of rewards to fit that schedule. Use a variable ratio schedule for the maximum behaviour repetition.

Dopamine makes people addicted to seeking information.

People are motivated to keep seeking information, so the easier you make it for people to find information, the more information-seeking behaviour they will engage in.

To achieve more information-seeking behaviour, give people small bits of information and then providing a way to get more information.

The more unpredictable the arrival of information is, the more people will be addicted to seeking it.

People are more motivated by intrinsic rewards than extrinsic rewards.

Don’t assume that money or any other extrinsic reward is the best way to reward people. Look for intrinsic rewards rather than extrinsic rewards.

If you’re going to give an extrinsic reward, it will be more motivating if it is unexpected.

If the product you’re designing allows people to connect with other people, then they will be motivated to use it.

People are motivated by progress, mastery, and control.

If you want to build loyalty and have customers return to your Web site, you’ll need to have activities that people inherently want to do (such as connecting with their friends, or mastering something new).

If people have to do a task that’s boring, you can help motivate them by acknowledging that it’s boring and then letting them do it their own way.

Look for ways to help people set goals and track them: show people how they’re progressing toward goals.

People’s ability to delay gratification (or not) starts young.

Some people are good at delaying gratification and others are not.

People who are not good at delaying gratification will be more suggestible to images and messages of scarcity (for example, “only three left in stock” or “only available till the end of the month”).

People are inherently lazy.

Assume that people will get things done with the least amount of work possible.

People will satisfice, that is, look for the good-enough solution rather than the optimal solution.

People make a decision that a particular Web site will be easy to use based on the impression the site provides in one or two seconds of viewing.

People will look for shortcuts only if the shortcuts are easy.

Provide shortcuts as long as they are easy to learn, find, and use, but don’t assume that people will always use them.

Provide defaults if you know what most people will want to do most of the time, and if the result of choosing a default by mistake does not cause costly errors.

Forming a habit takes a long time and requires small steps.

Give people a small, easy task to do, rather than a complex one.

Give people a reason to come back and do the task every day or almost every day.